Shepard Takes on Dual Roles at IO, Fortrust

The relationship between IO and FORTRUST is evolving in interesting ways. This week FORTRUST said it continues to experience strong demand for IO Anywhere data center modules, with more than 1.5 megawatts of capacity deployed in the first year of their “Powered by IO” partnership.

On Tuesday FORTRUST announced that David Shepard, Senior Vice President at IO, will assume the additional role of FORTRUST Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Shepard led the development of the Powered by IO program, and will now help market the solution for both providers.

As the first participant in the Powered by IO program, Fortrust committed to use IO modular data center technology exclusively as it expands its Denver data center, where it offers colocation and disaster recovery services. IO Anywhere is a family of modular data center components that can create and deploy a fully-configured enterprise data center.

FORTRUST now has IO data modules in all three of its locations, which include its own data center in Denver and IO-operated facilities in Phoenix and Edison, New Jersey. By using IO Anywhere, FORTRUST can expand its capacity in increments of 200kw and 400kW within 60 days of ordering a new unit.

“David and I worked together closely to enable FORTRUST’s adoption of IO’s modular technology and the development of the FORTRUST and IO partnership,” said Rob McClary, Senior Vice President and General Manager of FORTRUST. “We welcome Mr. Shepard and look forward to advancing the industry through this truly unique partnership. With his support, FORTRUST will continue to serve customers agile, efficient and on-demand data center capacity and services.”

“David Shepard has years of experience conveying IO’s value proposition to prospective customers,” said Steve Knudson, Vice Chairman and CEO of FORTRUST. “Having that expertise at our fingertips will enable both IO and FORTRUST to maximize the value of this partnership.”

Powered by IO sites and service providers are certified by IO to host IO’s technology to provide Data Center as a Service (DCaaS) in exclusive markets. Partners will share resources, training, technology, leads, sales and marketing. IO partner certification covers operations, sales, design and includes real-time monitoring by the IO.OS. Partner companies commit to using IO modular data center technology in their data centers.

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About the Author

Rich Miller is the founder and editor at large of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.

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